Green scan on trident lights

A public interest litigation was filed at the high court on Friday seeking an order for setting up a team of central government experts to probe complaints of pollution caused by trident lights.

The petition, filed by Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee on behalf of Anindya Das, another high court advocate, is likely to come up for hearing on November 30.

The petition submitted that the lights were harmful for roadside trees, and destroying the city’s ecological balance. It also referred to the alleged scam in the procurement and installation of the trident lights by the civic authorities.

“Apart from the environment aspect, the lights will result in unnecessary burden on the exchequer…. At many places, the lights have been fixed where there were already big sodium vapour lamps,” the petition said.

Environment activist Subhas Dutta said the lights emit “huge quantities of carbon, which helps spread diseases and is harmful for trees”.